ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS RELATED TO PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

Prof. V. P. Sharma
Department of Petroleum Engineering
Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad

There are five principal environmental concerns related to the petroleum industry. First, there
is the safe use and disposal of oil and oil-based products.

1. Disposal of oil and oil-based products fuels, lubricating oils and other industrial
products.
2. Air pollution from gasoline and diesel burning engines, oil and gas fired power
stations. This includes everything from primary pollutants to secondary pollutants.
3. Groundwater and soil pollution and hydrocarbons:
- Explosions, blow out, oil split on the surface or leaked from storage tanks,
pipelines and other equipment at refineries, gas stations, depots and production
facilities.
4. Disposal of drilling and other oil field wastes exploration and production.
5. Oil spills on surface water (slicks) and pollution of coastal and landside areas.

Health and Safety Risks:

There are health risks associated with both petroleum products and the small concentrations
of metals with which many products (particularly used lubricating oils) are associated.
1. Benzene and the toluene are the most harmful hydrocarbons found in oil products.
They cause irritation to the eyes and skin in contact, cause nausea and dizziness when
inhaled and are known to be carcinogenic.
2. Volatile hydrocarbons pose a risk of explosion, both at spill sites and at oil fields,
where vast quantities of high pressure, high temperature oil and gas are produced.
Most short chain alkanes have a flash point near room temperature or lower and so
must not be allowed to accumulate in high concentrations without being a significant
safety risk.
Large spills, especially on surface water may also harm the local flora and fauna,
poisoning fish and other marine life and destroying the insulating effects of birds
feathers. Hydrocarbon concentrations of less than 10-6 (well below the solubility limit

of most of the compounds) can affect the health of some marine organisms. This has
been seen after large oil spills at sea.
3. High soil concentrations of hydrocarbons interfere with plant growth, although at
mass fractions less than 0.01 can be beneficial, since, with bacterial degradation, the
hydrocarbon and its metabolic products act as fertilizers.
Mobile sands around installations is often sprayed with crude oil/residual oil to
stabilize it.
Heavy oils are incorporated in the slurry of seeds and fertilizer projected into areas
otherwise difficult to cultivate.
The function of the oil is to bind the mixture from over rapid drying out and also
protecting the seedlings from being washed out by heavy rains before they have
produced adequate root-system. This process is called Hydroseeding.
4. Brine, or salt water, that is produced from oil fields is also a potential hazard,
preventing most plant growth at concentrations greater than 0.0025. The salt
concentration of most oil field brines is greater than 40 times this limit.
5. Other fluids and wastes from oil production may be naturally radioactive. Radiation is
mutagenic and carcinogenic, although the levels of exposure from oil industry
activities is much lower than that from other natural and artificial sources.
6. Possibly the most toxic chemical associated with oil production is hydrogen sulfide
which may be present in natural gas (so called sour gas) at concentrations of a few
percent or more. Releases of H2S are potentially fatal.